Wojna nie ma w sobie nic z kobiety - Swietłana Aleksijewicz

The book "Wojna nie ma w sobie nic z kobiety" was ready as early as 1983. For two years it lay dormant in the publishing house. The author was accused of “pacifism, naturalism and undermining the heroic image of the Soviet woman.” During the period of perestroika, the book almost simultaneously appeared in episodes in two Russian magazines: “Oktyabr” and ‘Roman-gazeta’ and was published in two publishing houses: the Minsk-based Mastackaya Litaratura and the Moscow-based Sovetskiy Pisatiel. The total circulation was almost two million copies. A series of documentary films was made based on the book, awarded, among other things, the Silver Dove at the Leipzig Documentary and Animated Film Festival. Yegor Letov, founder and singer of the legendary Russian punk rock band Grazdanskaya Oborona, wrote a song inspired by Alexievich's book.

It would seem that everything has been written about the war, but Aleksiyevich explores unknown spaces. She talks about how the patriotic, even suicidal enthusiasm of girl volunteers, going into battle with Stalin's name on their lips, meets the cruelty of the front, hunger, misery, fear, longing. These young women have a different sensitivity, perceptiveness and physicality than their comrades in battle. In the accounts you will find little about troop movements, skirmishes and weapons, but many observations that are hard to forget - the front cook cooked a cauldron of porridge, but there is no one to eat it, out of a hundred soldiers seven were left after the battle.
From the laudation by Małgorzata Szejnert, chairwoman of the jury of the Ryszard Kapuściński Award

This is a passionate - and shocking - book. The great Belarusian reporter Svetlana Aleksiyevich, one of Europe's most prominent journalists on the scale of Oriana Fallaci, has recorded the war... of women. For in World War II, women - Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian - fought against Nazi Germany. With guns in their hands. Shooting, throwing grenades, blowing up. As front-line soldiers, as reconnaissance, as diversionaries. And so - killing and dying themselves. There are no pathetic author's comments in this book. There is a record of the stories of those women who survived....
Stefan Bratkowski

Svetlana Aleksievich's book has a chance not only for publicity, but also for careful reading. It is not just a collection of confessions and accounts of the fate of Soviet women directly involved in the past war, although this too is unprecedented. Through the confessions quoted in the book, testimonies are pierced every now and then, folding into an unknown or hidden picture of Soviet daily life; they are as eloquent as descriptions of the experiences, sufferings and wartime adventures of the female relators.
Prof. Jerzy Pomianowski

War has no human face. I look at it through the eyes of women. A woman remembers something different, she remembers differently. She remembers color, smell, more emotions, while men remember actions, tasks. Men are prepared from childhood for the thought that there might be a war. Women are not taught this.
Svetlana Aleksievich in conversation with Lidia Ostalowska

The book is written in Polish.

Technical data
Author: Svetlana Aleksievich
Cover: softbound
Year of publication: 2022
Number of pages: 336
Format: 133 x 215 mm
Publisher: Czarne